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CORPORATE GLOSSARY
The Five Greatest Business Expressions of All Time
Learn the secret meaning of common corporate words
The Corporate Glossary series reveals the truth behind common corporate words and phrases, so you don’t get duped. See past articles in this series here.
Do you remember the first time you saw: “I was today years old when …” followed by a clever trick it seems everyone else on the planet already knew?
This week’s Corporate Glossary gives you similar insights through five classic work expressions. Each shows you a way to see what’s in plain sight but easy to miss. Don’t be surprised if one or more of these inspires an “A-ha!” moment.
The easiest mistake to make
A software company owner explained a common phenomenon in this amusing way.
“They want this project tomorrow, and they think throwing more money at it will solve everything. I keep telling this client, you can’t get nine women pregnant and have a baby in a month!”
That’s the Mythical Man-Month in a nutshell.
Also known as Brooks’s Law, it’s simple. “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”
The Mythical Man-Month says, “More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined. Why is this cause of disaster so common?”
To summarize TMMM
- Things go wrong. Even people who think they do an excellent job of anticipating screw-ups underestimate them — by a lot.
- Effort does not equal progress, and this is where the incorrect assumption that men and months are interchangeable comes in.
- Estimates are guesses which means software managers are often unsure when to push and when to hold off.
- Progress on projects isn’t well tracked even when weekly even daily meetings are dedicated to this enterprise.
And finally,
“…when schedule slippage is recognized, the natural (and traditional) response is to add manpower. Like dousing a fire with gasoline, this makes matters worse, much worse. More fire requires…
